Making Someone's Day

The fact that someone's day was made because I emailed them, makes my day :) And getting an email from them makes my day any day :)

Really.

They may say Gil doesn’t exist, but well, he does. They may say Diana doesn’t exist, but she does. They may say they’re only fictional characters, but this fiction is that fictional character’s reality. So if one person could imagine this to be real, it can be and is real. Probably only Gil and Diana realise that they exist in someone’s reality. I’m sure at least one person would agree with me and another smile and say, “Very magical indeed”. Weaving fiction into reality is most enjoyable. Thank you very much.

Peace!

Now you know I have made it a point to do all the fun things that I like doing and doing new things, etc and all that jazz which makes people happy and which makes you want to run around singing ‘aaj main upar, aasman neeche’ type songs. You must know, dear intelligent and in-touch-with-your-soul reader, that we must not let what other people think is good or desirable affect what we want for ourselves. This becomes especially important if you’re marooned, somewhat, in a place full of 500 people who were very, very bright, interesting and had crazy different unique dreams in their heads before they landed up here. Now what happens to most people in my place of study, o discerning reader, is this. Some of them get ultra enthu to ‘kill the system’ and become all ‘studly’ and ‘awesome’ and worshippable by doing the things that most such worshippable people have done before. Follow precedent, basically, regardless of whether this is in unison with their crazy unique dream. Some think the system ‘sucks’, that it’s absolutely unfair and they don’t need to give a damn because that’s cool and they any way don’t care about their grades. They’re assured of a good job when they graduate from this place. Then there are some who’re just… there. They study, do their thing. Work when it’s time to work, chill when it’s time to chill. Form the bulk, basically. So there are the studs (including the almost-there studs) the theres and the this-place-sucks-so-I’m-going-to-dope-my-way-out-of-its. Now, there are also some people who’re in touch with their subconscious and so happily live happy lives dreaming about wonderful things and making them happen and do make them happen, etc.. Now, the best part is that these are some people who could’ve easily been a part of the theres but because they truly love their life, they vibrate at such a high frequency that people stop and take note of them. Well, most people do, barring some perhaps who’re so obsessed with doing the right stuff that they just forget to live their life.

So. Now, I’m not passing any value judgment or saying one is better than the other. All I’m saying is this. Why should we let other people’s dreams become our dreams? Why should A’s dreams be better than my dreams? Why should I care about whether people think I’m doing a better job of my life? Think about the enlightened ones I mentioned in the previous paragraph. We do take note and salute them in our minds and hope we could be as happy as them.

Then there are some cliquish people who think that the ‘best thing is do is ____’. Excuse me? Please add a ‘for me’ in there somewhere. You can’t decide what the best thing for XYZ to do is. And even if you think activity A is better than activity B, it’s only what you think and that perception is based on what your experience has been with activities A and B. Right? Right. So you don’t go around crowing one thing the most ‘studly’ thing to do, because honestly, it’s not that tough and doesn’t take an Einstein. And would only Einstein-ish things be worthwhile? Everything one does requires a certain kind of Einstein. Why should one type of Einstein be better than the other? Those who know what I’m talking about also know that when you portray yourself to others, you shouldn’t come across as a someone obsessed with one kind of Einstein. Einstein himself was not obsessed with one thing! Nor was Leo, nor was Newton, nor was or is anybody at all who is worth knowing and learning things from. If everyone just let themselves be and did everything for the kicks of it, without really thinking about how awesome it makes them in others’ eyes, then everyone would be studly. So status quo is this. Everyone here is still very very bright, except, some have progressed to being tube lights who’re in series resistance and glow very brightly when the voltage is high and because the voltage is high; and there are some very few who’re in parallel connection who glow brightly regardless of whether the others in the connection glow brightly or not. They really don’t care. And they’re the happiest of them all.

It’s just that you learn about the best and the worst in people only in certain circumstances, and the happy enlightened ones don’t really care about how well others are doing. You can’t keep measuring yourself against this scale which consists of the achievements/failures of others. It’s incredibly difficult for us to do that here, but I think that’s why we’ve all come to this place. I guess most of us are in the ‘temperance’ phase of our tarot-story-lives. You’ve got to keep going through it, till you learn the lesson :)

So just do your thing and don’t measure yourself against any such scale, alright? Please. Because you’re a lovely, beautiful, intelligent, creative and happy person. And X’s doing cool things doesn’t make you uncool. You’re cool yourself if you just do your thing. And I’m telling myself all of this more than anyone else, so PEACE! And yes, some of it is directed towards the general universe at large. Thank you very much, and PEACE, again!

BlogOwner Rants About Happy Endings

I’m all for happy endings. Now, tell me, what’s wrong with happy endings? That they aren’t real enough? Too fairytale-ish? They happen only in movies? What are we clashing on here? A) that happy endings are not possible in real life or B) you and I won’t have a happy ending?

I was watching Pretty Woman today and what struck me the most was that there actually are very few movies that make any sense at all and have a happy ending. A happy ending that is could be real. There are also very few books that seem to satisfy these criteria. Cynical writers? Or is it really so that happy endings are rare and hence we don’t write about it? Is it not so that we tend to write about that which is not or that what one wants or that which is, but with a certain degree of spin to it? What we are living, what is here and now is so difficult to write about. There is probably no novelty in that. Why would I want to read a book which describes, accurately and with every single detail, what it is to be Sneha and what it is to wake up at 8.20 am, shower at top-speed, rush to class, sleep (mentally) in class, have lunch, go to the library and work, ‘bond’ with people in the library, go back to the room at midnight and sleep? Well, I’d say that I would indeed read such a book if it were not written by me, which obviously wouldn’t happen because I wouldn’t do such a thing. But then again, I would read it to see my life, no, my daily chores (that’s not my life) through someone else’s eyes because there would certainly be some spin on it. It wouldn’t be what I live. And who else would read it? Nobody, except my stalker, if any, perhaps. And in any case, this wouldn’t be a book about what is, because it’s not written by me and nobody but I knows what is. So even if anybody else read it, it would be because it is not about what is. So either way I win. You get what I’m saying, don’t you?

Happy endings happen in real life. Now, there is really no ‘end’. Hence, there are no endings. Hence happy endings aren’t possible. What is possible is just, well, being happy. And that happens. So why are people saying all the time that happy endings are not real enough? Of course, they’re real if you assume there’s an end. This leads us to ask, what is an end? If we are to assume an end, then that end would be more of a turn or a culmination of certain events. There actually is a problem in the terminology and not in the idea itself. When two people fall in love and tell each other that, that’s a happy event, a happy turn, a happy end assuming both of them die that instant. Assuming they don't,they get married, that’s another happy turn. Then they have problems. They get, what is called, real. They take each other for granted. But they do come to some agreement at the end of each such set of events and live this way. Loving each other, hopefully. If they’ve managed to do that, then they’ve been happy. This brings us to the very definition of ‘happy’. What is being happy? I won’t define it, because it means something tangibly different to each one of us, but is the same in essence. A lot of people have tried, and failed, to define it. That’s not because – in the words of some idiot- that we’re not good enough to define what it is, but because the language we communicate in not equipped to define it. Everybody knows what it is and I say peace to that.

Anne of Green Gables is one movie, where there’s no such ‘end’. Anne and Gilbert do get married, but that’s only their happy turn, not their happy ending. When the knight in shining armour comes and rescues Vivian in Pretty Woman, it’s not the end, it’s the beginning of the story. A happy turn. So why is such a thing so unreal? We all get a taste of that feeling a lot many times in life. I’m sure you can recount at least 5 such turns which really made you feel that you’re special and that you’re you, a distinct soul in this sea of human beings, then why are happy turns, or if we can to accept the faulty terminology and proceed, happy endings unreal or rare? If it can happen to you, who may be at the most, say 24, 5 times already, then what makes you think happy endings aren’t possible? Why is pursuing your love so different from pursuing what you want in your work-life? I’ll tell you why. Because you value the former a little bit more. So you don’t want to make mistakes. But you know what? You have to go for it. You have to do as the 8 of coins says. You have to work towards it and glory will be yours. You will have a happy turn, a happy ending. And guess what, it’s not only you who wants that. The other person also wants it. It’s just so absolutely idiotic to not do anything about it and say happy endings are unreal and rare. Don’t be like Celine and the guy (I’ve forgotten his name) in Before Sunrise. Be like Edward and Vivian, like Anne and Gilbert, like Oliver and Jenny, like all those who loved love enough. You do not want to live all your life thinking “Oh, I should’ve done that, I should’ve tried that.” If Edward had not gone ahead in Pretty Woman and they’d have met after 10 years, they’d probably have been like the two in Before Sunset. Full of regret. Do you want that to happen to the story of your life? Or do you want your sequel to be like Anne and Gilbert’s where they don’t ‘live happily ever after’ because ‘ever after’ is not one day. They do live happily, yes. But they are not regretful. At the worst, they may fall out of love and become indifferent to each other. They may even start hating each other. Then, they’d think they rushed into it, or that they were foolish. But they wouldn’t regret not having done something. At the worst, they’d think they made a mistake. But they’ll certainly value their days of happiness because they did have that happy turn. They were happy at some point. It’s better to have that burst of happiness for a few days or months or years than not have it all AND have regrets. So even on a cost benefit analysis, going for it wins. Because this way, happy turns are guaranteed.

Please, do it, ok? Thanks. I had to say this.

No words.

I had been reading some lines of a poem which was a part of our course in Alt. English. They went something like this… and they made me spiral into some rather strange questions...

“This is a man who talks of pain
As though it belonged to him alone.
Maybe he has invented it himself
And made a virtue of it.”

(Of a Questionable Conviction by Jayanta Mahapatra)

This led me to think whether I too hold any resentment and pain within me. Am I living in denial or is it that I have not seen anything ‘real’? Why is it that I find it difficult to be morbid about anything for more than a day or two? (Yes believe me, being upset is such a rage these days that I feel left out at times and start questioning myself!) Am I living in a bubble? Why are so many people depressed and go about proclaiming their depression as if it’s something to be proud of? Do I get everything so easily that I have (almost) nothing to feeling bad about? To be depressed about? Have I had it so easy that I haven’t really gone through the ‘polishing and cutting’ phase would would eventually ‘mould me into a stronger being’? Am I actually very weak within?

Then I came across these words while reading Shantaram(it's in my Currently Reading section), which by the way is a must-read for all of you. This definition of suffering, gave something to think about—

"Suffering , of every kind, is always a matter of what we've lost. Real suffering is measured by what's taken away from us."

I agree. I couldn’t change it or better it in any way (of course this is only one instance of the author’s way with words. The book is sprinkled with quote worthy lines, many of which are debatable which in turns adds to the fun.)

So, going by that definition, I should really be suffering. But suffering isn’t being miserable. It’s just there, somewhere inside. I wish I could have some things back, which I can’t.

Then, may be what I have lost never really topped my priority list. Yes, they may not have. That’s because I always took those for granted! And that doesn’t decrease the suffering in any way.

You may think, what you’ve lost isn’t probably that big, so you don’t feel it. Okay then, so I take you away from your home to some place you’ve never liked living in (because you haven’t really ever lived there), turn your life upside down, take you away when you think you’ve got friends for life and then ask you to start all over again. Then you’re asked to ‘make new friends’ and ‘fit in’ and ‘do the right things to be in the good books of people’. I make you feel horrible, suffocated and lost.

So, it isn’t really a small thing. Of course, many lessons were learnt and tests were passed. In those first 2 years when I felt I (at times) could just die, I had once called up this friend after a long long time. It was diwali. I didn’t think she’d recognize my voice. She knew it was me the minute I said hello. When I asked her whether my voice hadn’t changed at all, she said it had changed but it still had the ‘happy ring and enthusiasm’ in it which she was sure only one person she knew in the whole wide world could have despite all that she may be going through. (me). That did make me feel glad, to be honest. And since then, I have started noticing if people whom I’ve never spoken to before on phone recognize my voice the first time. They always do and they tell me the same thing that the old friend told.

This again led me to think that yes, I may be suffering (but I am not ‘depressed’ or ‘miserable’. You can suffer silently without being a pessimist) but I don’t let that be the major part of me. I haven’t got everything...anything... easily. I have been through my share of testing time for this phase of my life. I have gone through the ‘polishing and cutting’ phase which I am sure many people my age haven’t even gotten a clue about. A lot of time people do get annoyed with me for not getting annoyed with them. Strange!

Despite all this, I somehow manage to see the silver lining. I don’t need anybody’s pity. I don’t need to be morbid to be different. I am already different, just by being the happy me. So don’t ask me why I keep smiling so much because I’ll only tell you one thing- I find things to smile about even where there isn’t anything, because if I didn’t, I’d probably have become a coke-addict or a chain smoker or a total goner by now. And I am never going to be those things. The only thing that can help one out of their lonliness, ‘depression’ and addiction is addiction to something else- happiness. You’ll never feel the need to drug yourself to be happy. That’s the way we were made. When we were children we never needed a ‘fix’ to get a ‘high’. We were always ‘high’, if you ask me. You don’t need to feel 'low' which would lead you to do things to make you artificially and temporarily feel high. So why take so much trouble? Feeling low isn’t cool, at least not in my book, so why feel that way?

Please Note:

1)Yes, I have digressed a hundred times in this post and even I don’t know what the actual topic of the post should be.
2)These are my views and they work for me.
3)I am not an intolerant person who despises addicts (to anything ie). I just wish they’d see the light within instead of searching the whole world for it.
4)No, I am not preaching. In case you thought I was, then you should look ‘preach’ in the dictionary. I am just saying what I want to say since this is MY blog.
5)Yes, 'happy' is a very general and relative term. I have used it to only denote not being sad and upset and just being pleased in general.

Saying it all and still not saying anything....?

She’s sorry. She didn’t know. Now she does.

Did you know it for real? Or did you only think that she needed it? No, she didn’t need it. She only wanted it. There’s a difference. A huge one.

She only wanted to break the cycle. She has set you free. She really has. She feels she doesn’t even know you. She’s right.

She doesn’t need to know you. She may want to know you though.

She took it all and went away, because she wanted to break the cycle. She needed to break it. She didn’t want to break it though. But she needed to.

May be you don’t yet know what she wanted to do and what she needed to do. By the time you get that, she won’t even know you. Actually, she doesn’t know you even now. But that time, she will refuse to know you. She won’t want to know you any more.

She says she is sorry for it. Is that okay?

I know it’s not.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Almost a year of blogging (but hardly a couple of months of regular blogging) ! Celebrating(?) blog anniversary with the same theme that gave rise to it all in the first place......

Chocolate Brownies and Shakira

Some people, like me, have quite a few memories which they surely remember at the very thought of chocolate brownies. It may be a first date, or a 'fantasy meet' with a cute net friend. These sinful fudgy thingies are so sweet and delectable when associated with one occassion and suddenly turn bitter when they remind us of those days that we are trying so hard to erase from our memory( which we so often curse because it remembers things that are better forgotten and vice versa)!

And then there are songs. Yes, of course. Who doesn't have those befitting soundtracks for certain phases of their life. I remember my own and its terribly difficult to ever listen to these songs without visualizing yourself in the circumstances that you were once in, that time when you came to relate with that song. mmm...

What about clothes? That cute top that you had worn to this party where you met that someone who made you dream about them for hours. Or that bracelet which, even though broken, preserves so many memories that you wouldn't trade it even for a gold biscuit.

What was the subject of conversation that day? What song was playing in the cafe when your eyes met? What perfume were you wearing that time? How we remeber such details that tickle us later and make us crave for them to come back. If we could only live those moments of ultimate rapture just once more. And carefully avoid all the thorny parts.

Puffy Eyes And Wrinkled Corners

Your face is contorted in such a manner that on-lookers may believe you are an alien. You are so overcome with emotions - of all kinds - that you don't seem to know which one emotion should you actually be feeling completely. You are euphoric that their love story lives on for eternity, but your heart cries for his death. ' Can such a story be real?' ' Can anyone ever be so
lucky, yet unlucky, to have all that love and then, lose it all just as quickly as it came?' Well, not really lose it all as it lives on for eternity, right?


What is eternity? Can someone feel a feeling for years together? Can one really find happiness by holding on to that one feeling that makes you want to cry your heart out as well as blush and smile ear to ear, all at the same time? A broken heart is probably like a broken vase. You may join the pieces together but the scars remain.


You live in fear. Fear of the probable fact that the remnants of those days, those memories, may give in to your humane follies and may disappear into oblivion. What will you hold onto then? What if one day that one ray of light is blocked by an evil rock and you no longer feel its warmth?


She said that he saved her in every way one can be saved. She was so right. We always wait for our knight in shining armour. He comes to our rescue. We get saved and live our lives in the light that they brought in. They are our saviours. People who do realize that this event or that person is their knight are the ones who can hold on to it and live with it. Others just don't see it
and curse their luck.

Memories In Ink

Good days, cherished memories, how we ache for them to come back and envelope us in their warmth. Take us away from this reality and hide us in a place where nothing but goodness can touch us. How we hope against hope for a time to come when we would just love being so full of life, only to soak everything around us. But, it does come. But when such a time comes, we are so busy blushing the entire time, that we forget that it was right here. It passes by like an evanescent, blinding flash of unreal reality – unreal because later, tears make their way through our solid bearing, wondering about how lovely those days were and start questioning if they were ever there.

Everything that a man yearns for, deeply yearns for, is that fuzzy intoxicating feeling of happiness. Even the ones who are ostensibly content with their ‘rocking’ lives long for this ultimate feeling of bliss. I think that this feeling can never touch us when we want it to or when it should. Because we realize what we’ve got only after its gone. And it does go. It does. Then, when we think about those moments of joy; these thoughts are the ones which lead us into a deluge of rapture and plain, innocent happiness. Memories- the only thing that stays back with us when all else has withered away, the only thing that we can cling on to, the only thing we wish so hard would materialize in the future.But when it does, and yes it does, we just don’t notice it.

ONE REASON, ONE NIGHT

She needed that one reason-one last reason- to satisfy herself of their worth to her. Well, good for her it came that one night which broke the invisible yet, the once impregnable wall around her. She knew that this would happen sometime or the other, but that tiny corner in her heart always asked her to wait for this one reason which would finish the endless wait, a wait which could have been consuming and ruthless to her, had she not known the reality.

She knew the reality, she knew it very well. She wasn't one of those who lived in their fantasies. And thats why, what would have hit some of the others as a boulder, didn't dare to even to touch her. She knew that. She knew this was to come and when it would come, it would only be succesful in blowing off that wall which was the first and the last thing she needed to show them what she was made of.

She always knew; a certain group of people in her life had left bitter memories and had quite a few laughs at the cost of her feelings. Nevertheless, she never 'hit back' as such. She kept it within her, he pain and agony, and always put it to use contructively. People had come and gone, but she never forgot them, neither did she hold grudges against them. Holding grudges was a thing she considered below her dignity. Everytime someone hurt her, she never let it show, but it remained- inside. She knew that now, it was enough. There was this one person who she knew to be one of them, yet he had never done anything to upset her. She was waiting for that one reason that would completely break the glass and set her free.

Then, that night, when she was unsuspecting of any such thing, it happened. Of course she was upset, but happier. She was free. She had got her reason. Now, it was time for work. Time to show it to them that she isn't who they think she is. She is a lot more. She is made of rocks. She is the light within herself and her own motivation, to go and do something so extraordinary that they'll look up and say, "There she goes, she was my friend!!". They will know whom they were fooling then. And on that day when she has the upper hand, she'll be happy that she held on to her faith which brought her justice and glory. Just like the water lilly, she had risen above the scum and had bloomed into a beautiful being.